The Abridged Version of Breaking Dawn
by EdwardCullenDuh
Summary: All right, this is our friend's thing... She started it. She is amazing. Exactly what the title says. Only, it has her thoughts and opinions. She has no idea that I did this. M: For Language.... Review Please!
1. Prolouge, and Explaination

**All Righty. I love my friend very much, and she sent this to Nufasa, who sent it to me. Now, it's got sooooo soooo many spoilers in it because she goes through the whole book. Now, this first part is just the prolouge... And there'll be four chapters, each Book. And, if Nufasa get our butts on it... We'll have abridged versions of all the books sooner or later... whatever happens. BTW!! There is swearing in here... Just to let you know.**

**3Shanamanin**

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Okay, so, previously on As the Vampire Sparkles, emoteen Bella Swan moves to a tiny little depressing brainy town and won't shut up about it. There she meets a mysterious boy who turns out to be a 100+ year-old vampire who literally sparkles "like diamonds" in direct sunlight and reads minds (but not hers), and after three hundred pages of Bella wondering why he's so mean to her and why he's so weird and why he's not being mean to her anymore and what his deal is and if he likes her and if he actually loves her and how much he loves her and how he could possibly love as someone as Mary Sue plain and boring and clumsy as she is and if his vampire family will like her, a plot finally shows up, but it doesn't last very long. And then they go to prom.  
In the second book, Edward the sparkling vampire leaves Bella for her own good, and she spends most of the book trying to kill herself with motorcycles and cliff-diving. Sort of. And then her best friend falls in love with her and turns out to be a werewolf, but Bella runs away to save Edward from committing suicide by public sparkling in Italy.  
In the third book, Jacob the best friend/boyfriend wannabe/werewolf turns into a total asshole trying to force himself on Bella, and a vampire with a grudge from the first book is trying to kill her, but more importantly, Bella and Edward argue about whether they should have sex, get married, and/or vampirize Bella, and in what order.

So here we are on the fourth and theoretically final book in terms of the actual plot moving forward. The following commentary is split into three parts because the book itself is, and... I was really squicked out by the middle third, so I want to give you the option to skip it if you'd rather. Also, the commentary is based off notes I took while I was reading—unless it's marked "Note from the future"—so you're going to see me trying to winkle out exactly where the book's going next a lot. A lot of times I'm wrong. A lot of times… I'm right.

Formatting note: Only **bolded** quotations are really from the book. Anything else, even if it's in quotes, is just from me. Conversely, yes, everything in blockquotes really came from the book.

Dedication: Stephenie Meyer dedicates the book to the band Muse. Well, at least it wasn't Linkin Park.

(I… I just realized that—on the basis of which musical artist has "been there" for me the most during my writing "career"—I would probably have to dedicate my next book to... Belinda Carlisle. Oh God, I can't look y'all in the eye right now.)

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**So? What do you think?? I swear I will forward all reviews to the author (If she doesn't kill me first... Wishful thinking.)**


	2. Book 1: Bella

**All right... Here's Book One... Reminder: Language and Spoilers, so don't read if you haven't. She had my sides splitting around the first couple of pages.**

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Book One: Bella

Preface: "Hi, I'm Bella Swan! Once again, someone wants to kill me. Maybe if I'm vague enough about it, you'll want to kill me, too."

Chapter 1: "Engaged"

Does what it says on the tin: Bella's engaged, the horror, and whines to us that she doesn't want to marry so young, but she wants to become a vampire before she turns twenty and gets OLD, omg, and her filthy-rich marble-skinned angel-god-Adonis vampire boyfriend has bribed her way into Dartmouth and given her a Black Card and a Mercedes Guardian, the missile-proof choice of drug lords and arms dealers everywhere, because Bella is just so clumsy that her life is on the line every time she walks out the door. Woe, life is SO HARD. Also, she's still moping because Jacob the werewolf is still mad because she broke his heart sixteen times, and also, she has to tell her police chief father Charlie that she's engaged to be married at the age of eighteen, fresh out of high school, instead of going to college. He's really going to be mad because he keeps demanding if she's pregnant, which is particularly galling because Edward refuses to get crazy until after they're married, and her mother Renee is going to be mad because she and Charlie got married too young (and then divorced) and she doesn't want Bella to make the same mistake.

Except then Bella tells them and Renee and Charlie are like, "Oh, okay, whatevs."

Chapter 2: "Long Night"

**"No, no. It's your bachelor party. You have to go."**

But not before Bella attempts to get her freak on! Again! Some more! Futile vampire foreplay ensues. And then Vampire Bachelor Party starts up at the drive-in theater, right after Werewolf Beach Bonfire.

God, I hope there's a hilariously awkward wedding night. Please, Santa, I have been so good.

I thought he would laugh, but he didn't answer, and his body was motionless with sudden stress. The gold in his eyes seemed to harden from a liquid to a solid.

Well, something's hardening. Also: **"I hate that you'll never have babies, Bella!"** facepalm

While we're here, let's get into the back story of the Denali clan, because FORESHADOWING they're coming to the wedding. See, the Denali clan up in Alaska is who Edward ran to when he had to escape the sweet, sweet, natural freesia scent of Bella's blood back when he first met her in biology class all of (checks watch) eighteen months ago. Bella's all insecure because Tanya once had a thing for Edward, but Edward didn't thing back because he's... never been interested in any girl other than Bella in 109 years? I'm just saying.  
More importantly, we get the back story of how vampire "sisters" Tanya, Kate and Irina were created by a woman, their "mother," who also created a child vampire and that was BAD, that was VERY BAD, and the supar-sekrit ruling vampire society, the Volturi, swept down with their fire and their wrath and their hey-that-hurts and burnt them, the not-mother and the kid vampire, to death, and that child vampires are completely uncontrollable and taboo and illegal and BAD, VERY BAD.

And then Bella has a dream about a beautiful little boy vampire... sitting on the bodies of her friends and family. OMINOUS.

Chapter 3: "Big Day"

OH THANK YOU JESUS THEY GET MARRIED. I was half-convinced we'd have a dozen crises putting it off until the last chapter. I'm not asking for much out of this book, y'all. I want Bella and Edward to get married, and to have a hilarious wedding night, and to get Bella vampired, and FOR NEITHER OF THEM TO DIE OR MAGICALLY GET RE-HUMAN. I want my goddamn treacly vampire fluff and I want it now. ONE FOR FOUR!

(Man. I am still so surprised that they got married so early in the book. The last time I read a book with a wedding that close to the front, it was crashed by Death Eaters.)

**I held my hands out automatically, and the filmy white garter landed in my palms. "That's mine and I want it back," Alice told me.**

ILY ALICE.

**Chapter 4: "Gesture"**

Alice (Edward's psychic vampire not-sister) is in heaven because she's finally gotten to throw the wedding of her dreams, and there are ten thousand flowers (including freesia, of course), and everyone that Bella knows but doesn't actually care about is there.

_Note from the future:_ You (and Bella) will never see any of her human friends or family ever again. Angela? Bye! Mike Newton? Adiós! Her mother? _Pssssh. _It's pretty much all vampires and werewolves from here on out.

(CAKE-IN-THE-FACE SMASHING SQUICK. Come at me with wedding cake in your fist and DRAW BACK A NUB, pal. Actually, I'm surprised Alice didn't leap in front of Bella like a Secret Service agent—the cake must have killed all the makeup we read about her spackling on Bella for, like, six hours.)

Speaking of werewolves, here's Jacob! He's come back from the wilds of Canadistan or wherever he was moping because he just wants to see Bella One Last Time before she gets vampired.

**"Now everyone I love is here."**

AUGH STAB NOT THIS LOVE TRIANGLE BULLSHIT AGAIN.

_Re: the frilly frou-frou wedding: _"Alice is an unstoppable force of nature."

CAN'T SLEEP, PSYCHIC VAMPIRE JOKER WILL EAT ME.

_Re: Not vampiring Bella just yet: _**"I just didn't want to spend my honeymoon writhing in pain."**

I'm… I'm not even gonna touch that.

Oh, lawl, Jacob's just found out that Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed Cullen are actually going to (gasp) have sex and now he's freaking the hell out. Everybody stand back, he's gonna fursplode! I KNEW some kind of shit was going to go down at the wedding. (But no imprinting on Angela! That was my pet theory! I am so disappointed.) And now, after a vampire-werewolf almost-rumble just barely escapes the notice of the mundanes, Edward is starting to have second thoughts about this whole sex thing, because (in case you're just joining us), vampires are hella strong and ice-cold and hard as marble and he's been worried about possibly crushing Bella. And that's why he doesn't want to have sex with her while she's still human, but that's the one thing she wants to do before she becomes a vampire, but he won't unless she is a vampire or they get married first, because premarital vampiring is bad, but Bella doesn't want to get married because her parents divorced young but she does want to have sex now and she wants to become a vampire before she gets too old and GOD JUST DO IT, SERIOUSLY, I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE.

**Chapter 5: "Isle Esme"**

Maybe I'll get my wish after THREE BOOKS ALREADY! Off on the honeymoon we go, to... South America? Are… are they going to Antarctica? Like Edward suggested for her first year as a vampire, so no one would get hurt while she was out of control and not herself? Are they honeymooning with the penguins? Will Morgan Freeman be narrating this?

Nope. Just off the coast of Brazil: Isle Esme. As in, Edward's vampire not-mother Esme. Esme has _an island_. Edward's not-father Carlisle gave it to her! Damn, I wish I was on these people's Christmas list.

Oh my God, there's a giant white bed with filmy white drapery. Should I go get some popcorn for this, or not even bother? We all know it's going to conveniently fade to black, right? Or be hilariously vague and metaphorical?

(Have I ever told y'all that one of the reasons Edward hunting mountain lions and moving _just like them_ cracks my shit up to hell and back is because it reminds me of the sex scene in _The Bridges of Madison County_ which I read when I was fourteen, and even then I thought it was hilariously awful where the guy "moved over her like a leopard"? I read that fifteen years ago and it's _still_ burnt into my brain.)

Aaaaaand Alice has packed Bella nothing but French lingerie. You know, for Bella's honeymoon with Alice's not-brother. Alice, I am putting you on notice. You are my favorite character! _Be more awesome_.

Meanwhile, Bella is having a small pre-sexing breakdown in the bathroom. You know, I actually think this part is kind of well done, because I'm sure a lot of teenage girls reading the book can relate to anxiety about having sex for the first time. I mean, not so much with the marrying a filthy rich dazzling vampire, but then, that just makes the parts they _can_ identify with so much more meaningful, don't you think? Anyway, Bella finally joins Edward for a sensual midnight swim, and MAN, that was an abrupt fade to black. Also: TWO FOR FOUR! Thank _God_.

**"How badly are you hurt?"**

GOD, EDWARD. Someone thinks highly of himself. Also: STOP BEING SUCH A BUZZKILL, SPARKLESON. But wait!

"**Why am I covered in feathers?" I asked, confused.**

**He exhaled impatiently. "I bit a pillow. Or two. That's not what I'm talking about."**

**"You . . . bit a pillow? Why?"**

Bella, honey, there's a reason there's a queen on the cover of this book.

**"Look, Bella!" he almost growled. He took my hand—very gingerly—and stretched my arm out. "Look at that."**

**This time, I saw what he meant.**

**Under the dusting of feathers, large purplish bruises were beginning to blossom across the pale skin of my arm. My eyes followed the trail they made up to my shoulder, and then down across my ribs. I pulled my hand free to poke at a discoloration on my left forearm, watching it fade where I touched and then reappear.**

Okay, that is actually fantastically creepy--waking up and looking down and having no idea that you've been all jacked up to hell. I will say sincerely here, well done. Unless… it wasn't supposed to be creepy. Because it so is.

Also: The pillow-biting will never, ever stop cracking my shit up. Ever. OM NOM ROUGH SEX NOM.

**"_That_," I snapped. "That right there is why I'm angry. You are _killing my buzz_, Edward."**

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I swear to you, I am writing this in real time—I had absolutely no idea she was going to say that.

OKAY, LET'S NOW ANGST ABOUT WHO THE SEX WAS BETTER FOR. SURE, LET'S DO THAT.

**He touched the frown line between my eyebrows. "I'm making you unhappy now. I don't want to do that."**

**"Then don't you be unhappy. That's the only thing that's wrong here."**

How about we all stop being unhappy? Look, you go fir—okay, let's _all_ stop being unhappy on the count of three, okay? OKAY?

Heeeeeee, Edward learned to cook breakfast from the Food Network.

(Also, I foresee some horrifically awkward fan encounters in Robert Pattinson's future. "So what positions do you think they did it in, tee hee!" He is probably going to want to upgrade the security system in his hair for that.)

**Chapter 6: "Distractions"**

So now Edward's determined to wear Bella out with good clean beach fun and tons of food all day long so that she'll be too tired to jump him at night. You know, because the pillow-biter feels _guilty._ Bella tries every trick in the book to seduce him, but she's an inexperienced eighteen-year-old so the book is pretty small. And okay, initially I thought it was really creepy—okay, pushy, or overbearing, or I don't even know what—that Alice packed Bella a suitcase full of French lingerie, but now that Bella's wondering if Alice foresaw that she would need it, it's hilarious. And I love how Bella refers to "one of the scarier pieces." In black lace, naturally. This may actually make up for us not getting the wedding night itself.

More Vivid Portentous Dreams. And then Bella wakes up sobbing because she had a hot sex dream and she was so very disappointed to wake up. And then Edward feels bad for her and they have lingerie-shredding, headboard-breaking sex. LULZ.

And now Bella's decided she's okay with going to college! Because that means she can be human longer! Because she wants to have more sex!

(_Note from the future:_ Bella does not ever actually go to college.)

And then the superstitious Portuguese Brazilian cleaning woman is scared of Edward because She Knows What He Is. This is going to end well.

(Also, Edward speaks Portuguese fluently. Of course he does.)

**Chapter 7: "Unexpected"**

More super-vivid nightmares about child vampires and the Volturi and the burning. Meanwhile, Edward goes out hunting (the Cullens hunt animals, not people, for blood) on the mainland, leaving Bella to toss and turn and get up in the middle of the night and... make fried chicken? Homemade fried chicken? In the middle of the night. Okay, well... you go on with your bad deep-frying self, then. Except that... something's wrong with it? But then she's hungry again? So it's like, fried chicken, fried chicken, _barrrrrrrrf_, hey... do we have any eggs? Fuck, is she _pregnant?_ She can't possibly be _pregnant_, can she?

**"No," I managed to choke out. "No, Edward. I'm trying to tell you that my period is five days late."**

YOU ARE FUCKING KIDDING ME.

**I had absolutely no experience with pregnancy or babies or any part of that world, but I wasn't an idiot. I'd seen enough movies and TV shows to know that this wasn't how it worked. I was only five days late. If I was pregnant, my body wouldn't even have registered that fact. I would not have morning sickness. I would not have changed my eating or sleeping habits. And I most definitely would not have a small but defined bump sticking out between my hips.**

YOU. ARE. _SHITTING. ME._

So… wait. Basically, it really is going to look like she and Edward got married because she got knocked up.

… AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

So, meanwhile, Edward's phone is ringing and he's standing there slack-jawed not answering it and Bella finally answers it and it's Alice (of course it is) and she and Carlisle (Alice and Edward's vampire doctor not-father) are freaking out, because Alice foresaw what would happen, and Edward's just standing there. Like, in shock. He still hasn't even responded to "I'm pregnant." It's kind of lolarious, I don't know.

**"What did Carlisle say?" I asked impatiently.**

**Edward answered in a lifeless voice. "He thinks you're pregnant."**

Well, dammit, that better be his diagnosis if the vampire baby is already _kicking!_

Everyone is horrified by the prospect of Bella somehow conceiving a mutant half-vampire miracle baby, and both Edward and Carlisle are trying to figure out how to "take care of it." Bella, on the other hand, is determined to protect her "pretty baby"--and who is the one person who is obsessed with babies (okay, that doesn't narrow it down in the Twilightverse...) and would stop at nothing to help Bella have one? Rosalie.

_So you're here from part one? Okay, before we get into this, let's do two things. Number one: If you are pregnant, do not read this section of the book. You may not even want to read this section of the commentary._ I don't even plan on having kids and it squicked me the hell out. It's like David Cronenberg took over the book for a hundred pages or so, seriously.

(Another reason you can skip this? This section is kind of like the camping section in Deathly Hallows: just when you're ready to kill yourself from boredom, you find out there's another hundred pages of it.)

I would also like to state this clearly and up front before I inadvertently offend someone: I have no problem with babies, children, kids, what-have-you. I was one, I'm glad people have them, I'm glad my mother had them. So when I complain that all the characters are so obsessed with baaaaabieeeees, what I mean is that every single female character in the series who expresses an opinion on the subject--Bella, Rosalie, Esme, and now Leah as well (and even some of the men!)--insist that bearing children is the most important thing ever, worth dying for, and not worth living without. And if they feel that way, you know, okay. The problem is that there is no character who feels any differently. There's no one who is ever able to say, "You know, I'm happy for you, and I am also a complete person without a baby myself." It starts to take on the subtext that women exist for the sole purpose of being mothers and that's galling, is all I'm saying.

Okay, second thing: let's go back through the supporting characters, vampire and werewolf, before we get started here, because they're all back in play for the rest of the book after a predominantly Edward-Bella section, and it'll be easier to go down the roster now:

The Cullens are a group of unrelated vampires who pretend to be a family--a doctor and his wife who look to be in their early thirties (or thereabouts), and their five late-teens/early-twenties adopted/foster kids--to blend in with society. Carlisle Cullen became a vampire in, like, the 1600s or something, and about a hundred years ago he made Edward (dying of influenza) to be his son, and then he made Esme (dying of a suicide attempt after HER BABY died, I'M JUST SAYING) to be his own wife and Rosalie (dying of... gang rape, what?) to be for Edward, except that Edward didn't like her and pretty princess Rosalie was more insulted than hurt, really, so she ended up making Emmett for herself. Vampires tend to bring their strengths from life into The Beyond or whatever, which often means that they kind of end up with superpowers, or at least some defining trait. Carlisle's seems to be "compassion," as he's trained his family to hunt animals instead of people, and he's a fantastic doctor. Esme's is, uh... being maternal. Emmett's a genial sort of meathead who's rilly, rilly strong. Edward can read minds (except not Bella's, because she is a special snowflake), and Rosalie has 1) extreme beauty, 2) an eternal obsession with the babies she never got to have, and 3) awesome powers of bitchcraft. You'll see. There was also another vampire, Jasper, who got all scarred up in The Mexican Vampire Wars, and his power is being able to affect the mood of a room, usually to calm people down, but also to stir them up if necessary. One day he ran into this other vampire, Alice (squee!), who can see the future (unless it involves werewolves) and steal hot cars and she was like, "Hey baby, I psychically know that we're meant to be, what took you so long?," and then she dragged him over to the Cullens', who had never even met either of them before, and was like, "Hey, which room is ours?" And that's because Alice is awesome. So the Cullen family is essentially a group of couples: Carlisle and Esme, Rosalie and Emmett, Alice and Jasper, and then Edward all by himself until finally he met Bella Adoraklutz Swan, the end.

The Quileutes are a tribe of Native Americans on the nearby La Push reservation, and apparently they go on Quileuting happily until vampires settle in the area, at which point the current generation of young people will FURSPLODE! into werewolves. So when the Cullens rolled back into Forks a couple of years ago, all of a sudden half the teenage Quileute boys started running super high temperatures and having giant growth spurts and OH TURNING INTO WOLVES, THERE IS ALSO THAT. And the tribe elders were all like, Aw, hell, this again. It's mostly kept a secret, although some of the Quileute families know what's going on with their kids (the werewolves can "phase" in and out of being wolfy, so they can pretend to be normal), and the wolves patrol the woods to make sure the Cullens only hunt animals in "their" territory and don't cross the line or bite people. Jacob Black became Bella's best friend in the second book, he came down with a fever of a hundred and werewolf, she broke his heart sixteen times, he's still in love with her, etc. Sam is the young chief of the werewolf pack (Jacob should be, by blood and descent, but got weirded out by the idea of authority and turned it down. I WONDER IF THIS WILL COME UP AGAIN), and he was engaged to Leah, but then he imprinted on her cousin (I think?) Emily, and had "no choice" but to ditch Leah and love Emily instead, and it was totally awkward. And then Leah became, like, the first and only female werewolf in Quileute history, and when the Quileutes are in wolf form, they can all hear each other's thoughts and cannot, in fact, hide them from each other. So the Sam/Leah thing is still SO VERY, VERY AWKWARD. And now, not only do the wolves have to listen to Leah being bitter in Sam's general direction all the time, they also have to listen to Jacob mope over Bella. Also, Quil imprinted on Emily's niece Claire, which sets new records for awkwardness because Claire is two years old. And Seth, Leah's little brother, is a younger wolf who fought by Edward's side in the third book, and he and Edward are totally in love, BFF now, even though wolves and vampires used to hate each other. Seth is my favorite. : D


	3. Book 2: Jacob, Oh Joy

**ON TO BOOK TWO!! I agree with my friend here... Funny Titles... Love them**

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Book Two: Jacob! Oh Lord.

See, here's the thing: I did like Jacob in New Moon. I hated the furry douche he became in Eclipse. The thing is, I think I hate what both Jacob and Bella turn into when they're around each other, now that Bella's admitted she can't ever love anyone more than Edward. Please, please let Jacob imprint on someone soon so the bitter obsessive moping can stop, I'm begging you.

(Note from the future: This comment has ominous significance now in light of what's to come.)

I will say, though, that Jacob's chapter titles are for the win.

Preface:

_**Life sucks, and then you die.**_

**Yeah, I should be so lucky.**

So… bitterness it is!

Chapter 8: "Waiting for the Damn Fight to Start Already"

Ah, Paul's imprinted on Jacob's sist… wait, Jacob has a sister?

Meanwhile, Jacob worries about how Bella's death will inevitably be faked so she can go be a vampire and thinks about doing something stupid, like picking fights with the super-strong, super-fast Cullens. Of course, then he'll see that she's neither sick nor dying nor vampired, but rather, deeply pregnant. At which point he will shit a brick.

And then we check in with Quil and Claire—you know, the teenage werewolf who imprinted on the two-year-old. "Imprinting," for those of you just joining us, is a love-at-first-sight thing where a wolf guy (or girl, I suppose, given Leah's presence in the pack) sees someone for the first time and that someone instantly becomes the center of his (or her) universe. As Jacob painstakingly explains to Bella in New Moon, it's not (necessarily) a sexual thing: whatever Claire needs—a brother, a friend, a lover—Quil will be that for her, because "that kind of love and devotion is hard to resist." Read: Claire has absolutely no choice in this at all, and is going to end up with a guy she's practically been raised with (by?). So let's see how that whole toddler-teenager romance thing is going, shall we?

"**Sounds like somebody's hit the terrible twos."**

**"Threes actually," Quil corrected. "You missed the party. Princess theme. She made me wear a crown, and then Emily suggested they all try out her new play makeup on me."**

**... The weird part was, Quil was having just as much fun as she was. He didn't have that face on that so many of the tourist dads and moms were wearing—the when-is-naptime? face. You never saw a real parent so jazzed to play whatever stupid kiddie sport their rugrat could think up. I'd seen Quil play peekaboo for an hour straight without getting bored. And I couldn't even make fun of him for it—I envied him too much.**

**Though I did think it sucked that he had a good fourteen years of monk-i-tude ahead of him until Claire was his age—for Quil, at least, it was a good thing werewolves didn't get older. But even all that time didn't seem to bother him much.**

This shit is wrong, y'all.

Meanwhile, all the werewolves are still involuntarily hearing each other's thoughts when they're in wolf form:

**There was a low grumble through the pack. I moaned along with them. When Jared finally showed up, no doubt he'd still be thinking about Kim. And nobody wanted a replay of what they were up to right now.**

Mmm, psychic werewolf soap opera. (Note from the future: We never do find out what happened with the werewolf paternity drama from the third book.)

Ah, now the wolves are finding out that Bella's "quarantined with a rare South American disease," which seems to confirm Jacob's worst fears (seriously, if you didn't know better, it would sound pretty fake), so I'm sure he'll be bounding over to the Cullens' to break in and see her and then be horrified that she's pregnant, etc., etc.

Sam the werewolf chief Alpha-Orders the pack not to attack the Cullens. So Jacob decides he as an individual doesn't count under that order, and off he goes! Oh, Jacob.

When I finished with Edward, I'd take as many of the rest of them as I could before they got me. Huh—I wondered if Sam would consider my death provocation. Probably say I got what I deserved. Wouldn't want to offend his bloodsucker BFFs.

Heh.

Chapter 8: "Sure as Hell Didn't See That One Coming"

And now Jacob sees that Bella is massively, super-acceleratedly pregnant. Like, nine months pregnant after only a few weeks. Unfortunately she looks like death warmed over two days late, because Bella's vampire baby is killing her and Edward's sparkle is deeply chagrined because he blames himself, and nobody can get to Bella to let them take the baby out and save her because she's got Rosalie (who craves babies, remember?) standing guard. So here's… Jacob to help?

**"I don't care about anything but keeping her alive," Edward said, suddenly focused now. "If it's a child she wants, she can have it. She can have half a dozen babies. Anything she wants." He paused for one beat. "She can have puppies, if that's what it takes."**

Okay, my mouth fell open here.

**What was he saying? That Bella should, what? Have a baby? With me? What? How? Was he giving her up? Or did he think she wouldn't mind being shared?**

**"Whichever. Whatever keeps her alive."**

**Yeah, it's still open.**

**I couldn't think about what he was suggesting. It was too much. Impossible. Wrong. Sick. Borrowing Bella for the weekends and then returning her Monday morning like a rental movie? So messed up.**

**So tempting.**

DAMN.

I felt like—like I don't know what. Like this wasn't real. Like I was in some Goth version of a bad sitcom. Instead of being the A/V dweeb about to ask the head cheerleader to the prom, I was the finished-second-place werewolf about to ask the vampire's wife to shack up and procreate. Nice.

Oh, and also, Jacob agrees to mercy-kill Edward if Bella dies. Y'all, if they make it this far, this is going to be the most fucked-up movie ever.

Chapter 10: "Why Didn't I Just Walk Away? Oh, Right, Because I'm an Idiot."

So now, Jacob's supposed to go in and talk to Bella and convince her to... do something. I don't know. They don't know. Tell her anything she'll listen to long enough to shake her resolve to keep the baby so they can save her (although Edward has promised that if werewolf babies are what she'll settle for, he won't go back on his word on that one).

**She laughed. "It's so good having you here. It feels nice to smile. I don't know how much more drama I can stand."**

**I rolled my eyes.**

I'm just… throwing that out there.

Meanwhile, Death Baby's in-utero antics are making me extremely anxious, though OH WAIT IS THIS TOTALLY WHY EDWARD IS GOING TO VAMPIRE HER? BECAUSE SHE NEARLY DIES? Ah, apparently Bella is thinking the same thing I am: she's okay with Death Baby potentially killing her, as long as she can get Edward's venom in her system before her heart stops. Unfortunately...

... Sam has totally changed his tune about the treaty once he hears about all this and is ready to kill "the mutant" now, and Alpha-Orders (you know, because he's the Alpha Wolf, and when he gives a command, the other wolves physically cannot disobey it) everyone to get with the Killing Death Baby and Possibly Bella program. As we know, however, Jacob is supposed to be the real wolf chief but turned it down, so I wonder if that will impact this…

Chapter 11: "The Two Things at the Very Top of My Things-I-Never-Want-to-Do List"

And there it was—a thought I'd never, never wanted to have. But now, with my legs all tied up in strings, I recognized the exception with relief—more than relief, with a fierce joy. No one could dispute the Alpha's decision—except for me.

Yup.

**Jacob: _I'm not telling you to step aside._Sam: _If you order them to follow you—_Jacob: _I'll_ never _take anyone's will away from him._**

OHHHHHH SHIT SOMEBODY GOT SERVED.

So Jacob basically says, "Hey, you guys, it was real, but I can't be having with this so y'all have fun, peace," and leaves Sam to be the alpha while he goes to protect Bella and warn the Cullens. And once he does this, he is no longer connected to the pack's thoughts. However, Seth then breaks off and joins Jacob whether Jacob likes it or not, so now Jacob has his own mini-pack, and they can hear each other's thoughts.

**And then we were across the road and moving through the forest that ringed the Cullens' house. Could Edward hear us yet?**

**(Seth:) _Maybe we should be thinking something like, "We come in peace."_**

**(Jacob:) _Go for it._**

**(Seth:) _Edward?_ He mentally called the name tentatively. _Edward, you there? Okay, now I feel kinda stupid._**

**(Jacob:) _You sound stupid, too_.**

Awww, Seth. How do I love Seth? Let me skip around a couple of chapters and count the ways:

**_I'll run the border, Jake. I'm not tired at all._ Seth was so glad I hadn't forced them home, he was all but prancing with excitement.**

**And then he was howling. _Oh, man! No way! You didThat just plain ol' sucks rocks, Jacob! And you know it, too! I can't believe you told Edward you'd kill him. What_ is _that? You have to tell him no._ not!**

**(Seth:) ****_There's nothing wrong with you, Jake. This isn't the most normal situation.  
_  
(Jacob:) _Shut up, please, Seth._**

**(Seth:) _Shutting. _**

There has been a distinct lack of awesomeness on Alice's part so far this book, so I'm glad that Seth is picking up the slack, even if it's more of a puppy-eager kind of way rather than a hot-car-stealing kind of way.

(Also, I swear that I do not recall the Cullens ever calling Jasper "Jazz" before.)

Chapter 12: "Some People Just Don't Grasp the Concept of 'Unwelcome'"

And then Leah shows up to join Jacob's pack! They kind of hate each other (mostly because Jacob's fed up with her bitterness), so that's all new kinds of awkward. He thinks at first it's because she wants to make sure her brother Seth doesn't get his ass killed, and then she points out to Jacob that, um, hello, anything would be better than being in Sam's pack now that he's with Emily. Mmm, it's time for another episode of All My Werewolves.

**(Leah:) _"Shut up, Jacob. Oops, I'm sorry—I meant, shut up, most high Alpha."_**

I have to say, Meyer has always let her snark flag fly with the werewolves--even in New Moon, they're funny. So that breaks up the monotony of Bella's horrifically squickful pregnancy somewhat.

Also, Edward is still in staring dead-eyed guilt mode:

"The fetus isn't compatible with her body. Too strong, for one thing, but she could probably endure that for a while. The bigger problem is that it won't allow her to get the sustenance she needs. Her body is rejecting every form of nutrition. I'm trying to feed her intravenously, but she's just not absorbing it. Everything about her condition is accelerated. I'm watching her—and not just her, but the fetus as well—starve to death by the hour. I can't stop it and I can't slow it down. I can't figure out what it wants." His weary voice broke at the end.

Oooooh, creepy. That's a compliment, by the way.

(If you'd told me a week ago that Breaking Dawn was going to be about Bella Swan Cullen fighting off a vampire fetus, I would have laughed in your face.)

And then, we have this revelation:

**"Think about it, Carlisle. If that creature is more vampire than human, can't you guess what it craves—what it's not getting? Jacob did."**

**I did? I ran through the conversation, trying to remember what thoughts I'd kept to myself. I remembered at the same time that Carlisle understood.**

**"Oh," he said in a surprised tone. "You think it is . . . thirsty?"**

AHHHHHHHHH fantastic. DEATH BABY CRAVES BLOOD. Somewhere, David Cronenberg is calling up his agent to see if they can boot Catherine Hardwicke off the series and let him direct instead.

(omg, does Death Baby bite Bella in utero and vampire her?)

Chapter 13: "Good Thing I've Got a Strong Stomach"

And then Carlisle and the psycho in question Rosalie were there. Carlisle had a white plastic cup in his hand—the kind with a lid and a bendy straw. Oh—_not clear_; now I got it.

Oh shit, I'd forgotten that blood grosses Bella out. (Technically, this would be a smashing opportunity for Stephenie Meyer to remind the reader that one of the key moments early in Bella and Edward's relationship was when she passed out during a blood-typing unit in biology class and Edward had to carry her to the nurse's office. Like, that's how much the sight--actually, the smell--of blood grosses Bella out. Except that... Jacob's narrating this section, and he wasn't there when that happened, and I doubt Bella ever told him about it. Fair enough.) Well, this is just wonderful. Except that… it turns out that Bella's kind of into drinking the blood, because of the baby. Huh. Like, really into drinking the blood. You know, through her straw. In her sippy cup.

**Bella chugged a few more ounces**

JACOB, IT'S NOT A SLURPEE

**Leah whipped her head back and forth like she was trying to shake the image out of her mind. _That is easily the freakin' grossest thing I've heard in my life. Yuck. If there was anything in my stomach, it would be coming back._**

Sing it, Leah.

So then Jared, one of the other wolves, comes to try to convince Seth and Leah to come back to Sam's primary pack and stop tearing their families apart omg:

**"Anyway, please, Leah. We want you back. Sam wants you back."**

**Leah's tail twitched.**

**"Sam told me to beg. He told me to literally get down on my knees if I have to. He wants you home, Lee-lee, where you belong."**

**I saw Leah flinch when Jared used Sam's old nickname for her. And then, when he added those last three words, her hackles rose and she was yowling a long stream of snarls through her teeth. I didn't have to be in her head to hear the cussing-out she was giving him, and neither did he. You could almost hear the exact words she was using.**

**I waited till she was done. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Leah belongs wherever she wants to be."**

Okay, so Leah is kind of awesome.

Chapter 14: "You Know Things Are Bad When You Feel Guilty for Being Rude to Vampires"

So the vampire-werewolf thing is at a stalemate for the moment while the wolves wait to see if the Cullens can save Bella or not. Bella's feeling better now that she's chugged about a quart of donated blood (yeah, the next time your hospital runs low, you know who to blame) and she's snarfing down scrambled eggs again (O the symbolism! I SEE WHAT YOU DID THAR) and she's thrilled to see Jacob again:

**What was _with_ her? For crying out loud, she was _married!_ Happily married, too—there was no question that she was in love with her vampire past the boundaries of sanity. And hugely pregnant, to top it off. So why did she have to be so damn thrilled to see me? Like I'd made her whole freakin' day by walking through the door. If she would just not care... Or more than that—really not want me around. It would be so much easier to stay away.**

I gotta tell you, it is so nice to have someone to call Bella out on her shit. (Note from the future: At least there's a plot-related payoff to this.)

And now Death Baby's breaking ribs. Jesus. So while the Cullens haul Bella upstairs to their makeshift medical center for some X-rays (I'm not making this up. Shit, they can afford islands, right?), Jacob catches some Zs, and when he wakes up, he finds Seth with his arm around Bella (to keep her warm--the wolves run super high temperatures, if you will recall) while snorfling down omelets and cinnamon rolls that Edward made for him (I told you it was love).

Chapter 15: "TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK"

Hey, what's Jacob getting to eat?

**There was a lot of banging in the kitchen, and—weirdly—the sound of metal protesting as it was abused. Edward sighed again, but smiled just a little, too. Then Rosalie was back before I could think much more about it. With a pleased smirk, she set a silver bowl on the floor next to me.**

**"Enjoy, mongrel."**

**It had once probably been a big mixing bowl, but she'd bent the bowl back in on itself until it was shaped almost exactly like a dog dish. I had to be impressed with her quick craftsmanship. And her attention to detail. She'd scratched the word _Fido_ into the side. Excellent handwriting.**

I kind of hate Rosalie, but that was awesome in an OH NO SHE DI-IN'T way.

Hey! We haven't ridden that tired love triangle pony in a while!

**"It feels . . . complete when you're here, Jacob. Like all my family is together. I mean, I guess that's what it's like—I've never had a big family before now. It's nice." Bella smiled for half a second. "But it's just not whole unless you're here."**

GOD, NOT THIS AGAIN. Look, either commit to a ménage à trois or give it up already.

**"From what little research we've been able to do, it would appear the creatures use their own teeth to escape the womb," Edward whispered.**

And it looks like Bella's only got four days left. AUGHHHHH.

So to break up the horror, Rosalie decides to go on and on about how Bella will totally be okay but it doesn't matter anyway because at least there will be a baby, and instead of letting Edward punch her in the face the way he (Edward) clearly wants to, Jacob takes one for the team:

**Silently, I lifted my doggy bowl off the floor. Then, with a quick, powerful flip of my wrist, I threw it into the back of Blondie's head so hard that—with an earsplitting bang—it smashed flat before it ricocheted across the room and snapped the round top piece off the thick newel post at the foot of the stairs.**

**... Rosalie turned her head slowly, and her eyes were blazing.**

**"You. Got. Food. In. My. Hair."**

And everyone falls out laughing.

"**I'm not going to forget this, dog," Rosalie hissed.**

**"S'not so hard to erase a blonde's memory," I countered. "Just blow in her ear."**

Magnificent.

Chapter 16: "Too-Much-Information Alert"

**(Leah): _I think you make a good Alpha. Not in the same way Sam does, but in your own way. You're worth following, Jacob._**

AWWWW.

**_I want to stay with you,_ she told me.**

Um. Are they gonna fall in love now?

Was Leah going to be a part of that life? A week ago, I would've found that idea beyond horrifying. I wouldn't've been able to stand it. But I knew her better now. And, relieved from the constant pain, she wasn't the same wolf. Not the same girl.

Um.

And then Leah tells Jacob that she totally understands where Rosalie is coming from:

**(Leah): _I'm... I'm menopausal. I'm twenty years old and I'm menopausal._**

OH GOD LEAH WANTS BABIES TOO. And Jacob, to his credit, is all GTFO! And look! He's even making sense on the imprinting issue!

**_You really want to imprint, or be imprinted on, or whichever?_ I demanded. _What's wrong with going out and falling in love like a normal person, Leah? Imprinting is just another way of getting your choices taken away from you._**

THANK YOU.

And then Death Baby strikes again—there goes Bella's pelvis (AUGHHHH). But that's okay, because

**Edward said, "Did you say something?" in a puzzled tone. Strange. Because no one _had_ said anything, and because Edward's hearing was as good as mine, and he should have known that.**

OH SHIT IT'S THE DEATH BABY CREEEEEEPYYYYYY.

**"What's he thinking now?" she demanded eagerly. "It . . . he or she, is . . ." He paused and looked up into her eyes. His eyes were filled with a similar awe—only his were more careful and grudging. "He's happy," Edward said in an incredulous voice.**

… Yet now they were together, the two of them bent over the budding, invisible monster with their eyes lit up like a happy family.

She plans on naming Death Baby "Edward Jacob," because she has no shame where dicking Jacob around is concerned. But what will we call the baby if it's a girl?

**Bella wiped the back of her hand under her wet eyes. "I kicked a few things around. Playing with Renée and Esme. I was thinking . . . Ruh-nez-may."**

**"Ruhnezmay?"**

"R-e-n-e-s-m-e-e. Too weird?"

Oh Christ.

(Note from the future: Full name Renesmee Carlie Cullen. We're lucky Bella didn't want to name a boy Edwob Charlisle.)

Chapter 17: "What Do I Look Like? The Wizard of Oz? You Need a Brain? You Need a Heart? Go Ahead. Take Mine. Take Everything I Have."

Look, people, I just report the titles, I don't make 'em up.

So, anyway, the godawful name Bella's going to give her kid, the sight of happy pregnant Bella Cullen is too much for lovelorn Jacob to bear, so Edward tosses him the keys to the family's Aston Martin (no, really. No, really) and lets Jacob take off to drive away his pain. Or something. Hey, I know! Let's go pick up chicks!

But, as I'd searched my head for any way at all to get away from the pain, what Leah'd said today had popped in there.

_**That would go away, you know, if you imprinted. You wouldn't have to hurt over her anymore.**_

Seemed like maybe getting your choices taken away from you wasn't the very worst thing in the world. Maybe feeling like _this_ was the very worst thing in the world.

Aaaaand we're back to this again. What did free will ever do to Stephenie Meyer?

But I'd seen all the girls in La Push and up on the Makah rez and in Forks. I needed a wider hunting range. So how do you look for a random soul mate in a crowd? Well, first, I needed a crowd. So I tooled around, looking for a likely spot. I passed a couple of malls, which probably would've been pretty good places to find girls my age, but I couldn't make myself stop. Did I _want_ to imprint on some girl who hung out in a mall all day?

So he goes cruising for potential Wolf Girls anyway!

1. Oh my God, be less creepy.

2. ANGELA! ANGELA!

And then he met… Lizzie.

Oh, wait, that doesn't go anywhere.

And then when Jacob gets back, Edward tells him that Death-Pregnant Bella's crying because Leah called her out on the Jacob shit. Vehemently. Fortunately for Bella, Death Baby is chilling a bit because it turns out that little Edwob feels bad for hurting Mommy:

**"It's a bit more than that," Edward murmured. "Now that I can make out the child's thoughts, it's apparent that he or she has remarkably developed mental facilities. He can understand us, to an extent."**

**My mouth fell open. "Are you serious?"**

**"Yes. He seems to have a vague sense of what hurts her now. He's trying to avoid that, as much as possible. He... loves her. Already."**

I… I'm not sure if that's less creepy.

(By the way, Edward randomly observes that Seth has "one of the purest, sincerest, kindest minds I've ever heard." I am telling you, if this Bella thing doesn't work out, Seth is going to be there to comfort Edward. If you know what I mean. And I think you do.)

Back to Bella:

**"Rose'll catch me if I trip over my feet en route to the bathroom. Which could happen pretty easily, since I can't see them."**

You know what I just realized? I don't think Bella's been clumsy the entire book so far. I mean, she's pregnant: she legitimately can't see her feet, so this doesn't count. I don't know if Meyer started taking her critics' advice, but she really seems to have eased up on the adoraklutzability, and I applaud her for it.

It was not just a scream, it was a blood-curdling shriek of agony. The horrifying sound cut off with a gurgle, and her eyes rolled back into her head. Her body twitched, arched in Rosalie's arms, and then Bella vomited a fountain of blood.

OH JESUS.

Chapter 18: "THERE ARE NO WORDS FOR THIS."

SERIOUSLY, JACOB, I KNOW.

**Somewhere in this, Bella came around. She responded to their words with a shriek that clawed at my eardrums. "Get him OUT!" she screamed. "He can't BREATHE! Do it NOW!"**

And then… apparently Rosalie is so thirsty from not hunting that she nearly attacks the baby?

**And I had to give it to Blondie—she didn't put up an ounce of fight. She _wanted_ us to win. She let me trash her like that, to save Bella. Well, to save the thing**.

AH CHRIST IT BREAKS BELLA'S SPINE. GOD, I DON'T KNOW THAT I CAN FINISH READING THIS.

And now, Werewolf CPR on Bella's naked, bloodstained body as Edward and Jacob deliver the Death Baby. (ETA: I should add that they do deliver it Caesarean-style. By biting it out, which I neglected to mention because I was flailing so wildly.) Seriously, they cannot make this into a movie. I cannot imagine for one second how they could make this into a movie appropriate for teenage girls and keep this part in it.

**By the time I looked, it was too late. Edward had snatched the warm, bloody thing out of her limp arms. My eyes flickered across her skin. It was red with blood—the blood that had flowed from her mouth, the blood smeared all over the creature, and fresh blood welling out of a tiny double-crescent bite mark just over her left breast.**

**And then Edward shoots Bella directly in the heart with a syringe of his venom.**

**It was like he was kissing her, brushing his lips at her throat, at her wrists, into the crease at the inside of her arm. But I could hear the lush tearing of her skin as his teeth bit through, again and again, forcing venom into her system at as many points as possible.**

Lush? Ew.

(Is it wrong that I'm now trying to figure out how he got a syringe full of venom in the first place? Like... did he have Alice milk his not-fangs or something? Or is all their blood just venom anyway?)

Because that's all that was left of the girl we both loved. This broken, bled-out, mangled corpse. We couldn't put Bella together again.

I knew it was too late. I knew she was dead.

Oh, whatever.

OH SHIT DID JACOB JUST IMPRINT ON THE NEWBORN DEATH BABY? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I JUST... WHAT THE HOLY GODDAMN HELL.

… Clearly, I was not being ambitious enough when I predicted a while back that Jacob would imprint on Angela "for maximum angst."

have to say, y'all, that what follows is possibly the most awesome crackfic of any of the series so far. I love it and kind of want to snuggle it a little. Seriously, I keep hearing about all the True Fans freaking out, and honestly? I don't see anything in the new book that wasn't in the previous three. As in, I don't get why you're offended _now._ I mean, yes, there's sex (yes, sex) and gore, and the previous section made me want to curl up and die, but I have no problems with _Breaking Dawn_ that I didn't already have with the other three (frequently, vehemently, and at top volume), and _Breaking Dawn_ is far better written on a purely stylistic level to boot. So.

In case you _did_ take my warning and skip the second section, here's the upshot: after going through a roster of supporting vampires and werewolves (which you may need for this section as well), I had the pleasure of informing y'all that Bella was massively pregnant with a growth-accelerated half-vampire Death Baby that would come to term after a total pregnancy of about a month, and also, kill her. After it broke Bella's ribs, her pelvis, and her spine, and totally killed Bella dead, no really, I'm so sure it did with 400 pages left in the book, sob, etc., Edward Jacob Edwob Charlisle Death Baby Renesmee Carlie Cullen entered the world with a full head of hair and a full set of teeth, whereupon Jacob promptly imprinted upon her. Yes, _really._ No, _I know._

Also, there was werewolf snark galore, which is pretty much the only thing that kept me from keeling over.


	4. Book 3: Bella, Again

**ALL RIGHT!! Last one... Forever... Until Nufasa and I get our act together... of course... lol...**

**3Shanamanin**

**PS. Language... Reason for M Rating...**

* * *

Book Three: Bella

JUST TWENTY MORE CHAPTERS, YOU GUYS.

(By the way: All the chapter titles were and are real. Yes, even the Jacob chapters.)

**Preface:** "Hi! It's me, Bella Swan again! And people still want to kill me! ONLY THIS TIME BELLA WANTS TO KILL BACK."

**Chapter 19: "Burning"**

Burning, pain, ow the fire, kill me, silent screams, etc. For the entire chapter. All seventeen pages of it. Plus a few things Bella is able to overhear:

**(Carlisle:) "Listen to her heart, Edward. It's stronger than even Emmett's was. I've never heard anything so vital. She'll be perfect."**

Wait for it… wait for it…

**"She's going to be dazzling."**

**Chapter 20: "New"**

OH THANK YOU JESUS BELLA IS A VAMPIRE HOW LONG I HAVE WAITED FOR THIS DAY. Well… I only started reading the books, like, two and a half months ago, but you see my point: THREE FOR FOURRRRRR. More importantly, Bella's first action as a vampire is to FLIP OUT LIKE NINJA!

**I flipped off my back in a spin so fast it should have turned the room into an incomprehensible blur—but it did not. I saw every dust mote, every splinter in the wood-paneled walls, every loose thread in microscopic detail as my eyes whirled past them. So by the time I found myself crouched against the wall defensively—about a sixteenth of a second later—I already understood what had startled me, and that I had overreacted.**

Also, she has never _really_ seen Edward's face before this moment, godlike angel marble Adonis beauty, etc. And also, even though she's supposed to be mad and inhuman with bloodlust, all Bella can think of when she touches Edward is… something else. God bless, Bella. I like you better when you let your inner nasty off the chain.

**I was stronger than Edward. I'd made him say _ow_.**

Man, are they gonna break some furniture tonight.

**He kissed me, soft as a whisper at first, and then suddenly stronger, fiercer. I tried to remember to be gentle with him, but it was hard work to remember anything in the onslaught of sensation, hard to hold on to any coherent thoughts. It was like he'd never kissed me—like this was our first kiss. And, in truth, he'd never kissed me this way before.**

HEY YOU GUYS, YOUR ENTIRE VAMPIRE FAMILY IS WATCHING.

Let's go ahead, skip around the next couple of chapters, and count all the ways that Bella is a better vampire than everyone else:

1) **"You are quite controlled," Carlisle mused. "More so than I expected, even with the time you had to prepare yourself mentally for this."**

2) **My first reaction was an unthinking pleasure. The alien creature in the glass was indisputably beautiful, every bit as beautiful as Alice or Esme. She was fluid even in stillness, and her flawless face was pale as the moon against the frame of her dark, heavy hair. Her limbs were smooth and strong, skin glistening subtly, luminous as a pearl.**

Oh--flawless except for the blood-red eyes.

3) **Edward grinned. "Jasper wonders how you're doing it."**

**"Doing what?"**

**"Controlling your emotions, Bella," Jasper answered. "I've never seen a newborn do that—stop an emotion in its tracks that way. You were upset, but when you saw our concern, you reined it in, regained power over yourself. I was prepared to help, but you didn't need it."**

4) "**That jump was quite graceful—even for a vampire."**

5) **"I'm not laughing at you, Bella. I'm laughing because I am in shock. And I am in shock because I am completely amazed."**

"**Why?"**

**"You shouldn't be able to do any of this. You shouldn't be so . . . so rational. You shouldn't be able to stand here discussing this with me calmly and coolly. And, much more than any of that, you should not have been able to break off mid-hunt with the scent of human blood in the air. Even mature vampires have difficulty with that—we're always very careful of where we hunt so as not to put ourselves in the path of temptation. Bella, you're behaving like you're decades rather than days old."**

There's a part of me that's pleased for Bella, and a part of me that's pleased because she's the reader proxy so we get to be uncommonly beautiful and graceful and good at vampiring too, and then… there's a part of me that wants to tear my hair out because it's all so screamingly Mary Sue. Sigh.

**Chapter 21: "First Hunt"**

YAY IT'S TIME TO HUNT! What's going to be _Bella's_ favorite animal? It's like a personality test on Quizilla! But what about the baby? Should we really leave Renesmee in the care of Rosalie and a werewolf?

**Edward's lips tightened in an odd way. "Trust me, the baby is perfectly safe. I know exactly what Jacob is thinking."**

MAN, I cannot WAIT for Bella to find out that Jacob imprinted on her newborn baby.

But what are we wearing on our first hunt? This is an important consideration, you know.

**Also, this dress—that Alice must have put me in sometime when I was too lost in the burning to notice—was not what I would have picked out for either jumping or hunting. Tightly fitted ice-blue silk? What did she think I would need it for? Was there a cocktail party later?**

**The ground seemed to move toward me so slowly that it was nothing at all to place my feet—what shoes had Alice put me in? Stilettos?**

Oh, _Alice._

The shoes are "silver satin," by the way. What, Alice couldn't get them dyed to match?

**Hoping very much that Esme was not particularly fond of any specific trees across the river, I began my first stride. And then stopped when the tight satin split six inches up my thigh. Alice!**

_Sexy._ So Bella rips the dress up both the sides on purpose anyway. Edward approves.

(They are totally going to have hot, tree-smashing monkey sex in the forest, aren't they?)

**I swung lightly from the limb and landed on my toes, still fifteen feet from the ground on the wide bough of a Sitka spruce**.

It was fabulous.

**Over the sound of my peals of delighted laughter, I could hear Edward racing to find me. My jump had been twice as long as his.**

BELLA SWAN VAMPIRES BETTER THAN YOU!

**He was faster than me.**

Well, thank God he's still better than you at something. And what does she smell?

**Mostly him—his strange honey-lilac-and-sun perfume.**

Sigh. So anyway, Edward and Bella go hunting, and they nearly run into a couple of hikers so Bella cuts and runs because it might be, actual quote, "someone I know!," and Edward's all like, "OMG HOW DID YOU DO THAT?" because newborn vampires are supposed to be pretty uncontrollable when faced with warm and meaty humans (hell, remember in _New Moon _when Bella cut herself and Jasper lost his shit and tried to jump her?), and Bella's all surprised because she thought she was going to be a brainless slavering monster for her first year, not able to stand around discussing this rationally and feeling like her old self. And also, can they have sex now?

**"I thought I wouldn't feel this way for a long time?" My uncertainty made the words a question. "But I still _want_ you."**

**He blinked in shock. "How can you even concentrate on that? Aren't you unbearably thirsty?"**

**Of course I was _now_, now that he'd brought it up again!**

So instead, she snacks on a mountain lion and some deer. Keep in mind, y'all, that all this is happening while Bella's in a shredded satin cocktail dress.

**Chapter 22: "Promised"**

Let's go see Not-Death Baby Renesmee! Who, by the way: sleeps (vampires don't), has a heartbeat (vampires don't), isn't venomous (she bites whenever Jacob doesn't feed her fast enough, and no one's died yet), has vampire skin, drinks blood and not formula, and… talks psychically to her father:

**(Edward:) "She's intelligent, shockingly so, and progressing at an immense pace. Though she doesn't speak—yet—she communicates quite effectively."**

**(Bella:) "Doesn't. Speak. _Yet_."**

I won't bore you with another list of quotes, but let it be noted that people always speak of Teh Baby with "religious fervor" or the reverence with which "people talked about their gods." Bella was out burning for two days, so she's totally jealous of the way Edward talks about Renesmee--not jealous of Renesmee for having his attention, but of _Edward_, for having spent all this time with the baby that she hasn't had. Also: BAAAAAAABYYYYYY.

Also-also, Edward seems to indicate that he's already got this father thing down thoroughly enough to consider getting a head start on kicking Renesmee's future boyfriend's ass. Speaking of whom! Jacob puts himself between Bella and Renesmee because he wants to make sure Bella's in control. _Because Renesmee is the center of his universe now._ HAAAAAAAAAAA. I don't know—maybe I just find it hilarious because we've gone through two and a half books where Bella was the center of everything, particularly male attention, and now Jacob's all like STEP OFF MY GIRL, YOU BITCH, I DON'T CARE IF YOU BIRTHED HER.

(First, though, Edward has to put his shirt on Bella because her cocktail dress is so shredded from hunting, and Bella is distracted by his shirtlessness. _Focus_, Bella, you have to meet your baby before you can have the sex.)

So Bella's all confused because Jacob's trying to protect the baby from what everyone is (reasonably) assuming is Bella's new-vampire lack of control, and Bella appreciates this, and yet... Edward wants to kick his ass, and Bella no longer feels that weird overpowering need to have Jacob near, and Jacob's acting like he'd throw himself in front of a train for the baby, and Edward and Jacob seem to be keeping a secret from Bella and _what could it all mean? _Excuse me, I have to go make some popcorn, I'll be right back.

Okay, I'm back. Om nom nom. So Bella successfully walks back into the house without flipping out on Jacob, and then Jacob races back ahead of her to PROTECT THE BAAAAAABYYYYYY, and Emmett's in the corner snickering because _everyone knows about the imprinting but Bella_. But we'll get to that--here's Renesmee! Bella was out for two days, and already Renesmee looks _months_ old. After the completely terrifying horrorshow that the birth was, it's kind of a naïve fantasy of what parenting could be like **(actual quote: "The only parents in the world who don't need sleep, and our child already sleeps through the night").** Except that Stephenie Meyer apparently has three kids. So… maybe it's less "naïve" and more "Oh God, please send help, I haven't slept in three days."

Anyway: of course Renesmee is a magical vampire baby. She can do "the exact opposite" of what Edward can: showing her thoughts to others by touching them, rather than reading theirs. So she "asks" Rosalie if that's her mom, because she totally recognizes Bella already. Mostly because she remembers being extracted from Bella's bloody corpse. Touching! Also, "Renesmee's fragrance was perfectly balanced right on the line between the scent of the most beautiful perfume and the scent of the most delicious food," in case you were wondering what Vampire Smell the baby has.

So meanwhile, everyone's like NOOOO DON'T LET BELLA EAT THE BABY and Edward's like "No, srsly, you guys, there were these hikers in the woods" and Emmett's like "AHAHAHAHA I TOLD YOU SHE WOULD EAT PEOPLE" and Edward's like "No, she totally ran away first! It was awesome!" and Jasper's all "EXCUSE ME, I HAVE TO GO SULK NOW." Considering that they're all still calling him "Jazz," I'm surprised he didn't go moping sooner. So FINALLY, they let Bella hold the baby, and lo, it is a religious experience. Except... why is Jacob still holding Renesmee too? Why won't he let her go...? OH SHI--

**"You didn't," I snarled at him.**

**He backed away, palms up, trying to reason with me. "You know it's not something I can control."**

**"You _stupid mutt!_ How could you? My _baby!"_**

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Of course, then Jacob informs her that this is the reason he was so hung up on Bella and force-kissing her and trying to wheedle her away from Edward all this time: because somehow, the very fiber of his being knew that Bella would someday be the mother of his imprinted baby bride. Yeah.

"**C'mon, Bells! Nessie likes me, too," he insisted.**

**I froze. My breathing stopped. Behind me, I heard the lack of sound that was the Cullens' anxious reaction.**

**_"What_... did you call her?"**

**Jacob took a step farther back, managing to look sheepish. "Well," he mumbled, "that name you came up with is kind of a mouthful and—"**

**"You nicknamed my daughter after the _Loch Ness Monster?" _I screeched.**

**And then I lunged for his throat.**

I actually started clapping my hands at this point. Man, I like Bella so much more as a vampire.

**Chapter 23: "Memories"**

So then Bella fucks some werewolf shit _up:_

Edward was _still_ apologizing, and I didn't think that was either fair or appropriate. After all, _Edward_ hadn't completely and inexcusably lost control of his temper. _Edward_ hadn't tried to rip Jacob's head off—Jacob, who wouldn't even phase to protect himself—and then accidentally broken Seth's shoulder and collarbone when he jumped in between. _Edward_ hadn't almost killed his best friend.

Oh, and also, the truce is back on and totally binding because a werewolf can't kill anyone another wolf's imprinted on (_convenient!_) and Rightful Alpha Jacob has Alpha-Ordered all the wolves to step the hell off Bella. Everyone's happy! All problems are solved! And yet… there are still 300 pages in this book. Dear _God._

Renesmee had matured from a single cell to a normal-sized baby in the course of a few weeks. She looked well on her way to being a toddler just days after her birth. If this rate of growth held...

**My vampire mind had no trouble with the math. "What do we do?" I whispered, horrified.**

Um… Alice can plan the wedding? Anyway, Renesmee feeds Bella the memories of everything that Bella missed while she was out burning—

**Renesmee smiled her brilliant smile, and her memory eyes did not leave Jacob through all the following mess. I tasted a new flavor to the memory—not exactly protective, more possessive—as she watched Jacob. I got the distinct impression that she was _glad_ Seth had put himself in front of my spring. She didn't want Jacob hurt. He was _hers._**

**"Oh, wonderful," I groaned. "Perfect."**

—and Jasper goes out and sulks some more, because he hates that Bella already has more self-control than he's ever had, squared.

Hey, guess what, you guys? It just also happens to be Bella's nineteenth birthday!

**Chapter 24: "Surprise"**

AND SHE IS STILL GOING TO BE A HEFFA ABOUT IT.

(Also, Rosalie no longer hates Bella, because Bella had the baby she could never have! Therefore, Bella is all right with Rosalie. I'm glad Rosalie has a broad range of criteria for judging people there.)

Anyway, Edward got Bella a car for her birthday. No, another one (a Ferrari). Carlisle and Esme got Bella a cottage out in the forest behind the house:

It was a place where anyone could believe magic existed. A place where you just expected Snow White to walk right in with her apple in hand, or a unicorn to stop and nibble at the rosebushes.

(Are you surprised? Really?)

And in that cottage is a closet of clothes from Alice--a closet pretty much bigger than the rest of the cottage combined. And they're going to need those clothes, because the moment Alice leaves them alone in the cottage, Bella rips Edward's off. No, literally. (Ow, damn! On the wooden floor! All night long! Walk six feet, people, the bed's right there! Fuck in that general direction, I'm sure you can get there eventually!) And then she asks him if he's sad that she's not warm and meaty anymore. He's not sad, because now they're both vampires and indestructible and they can break furniture all night long. _Unf.  
_

**Chapter 25: "Favor"**

I would balance this overwhelming, devastating desire for Edward so that I could be a good— It was hard to think the word. Though Renesmee was very real and vital in my life, it was still difficult to think of myself as a _mother._ I supposed anyone would feel the same, though, without nine months to get used to the idea. And with a child that changed by the hour.

So that's... that's pretty much where we are right now. Bella gets dressed in Alice's giant closet and Edward puts on the beigest clothes he can lay hands on, naturally, and they go to see Renesmee. Meanwhile, they've been trying to figure out how the hell they're going to stay in town with Bella all vampired (read: visibly red-eyed and marble-skinned) and with, oh, A FULL-GROWN TODDLER and not have anyone notice. Obviously, the Cullens are going to clear out pretty soon, even though that will tear Jacob apart inside omg. Hey, where did Jacob go?

HOSHIT JACOB WENT TO SEE CHARLIE AND FURSPLODED IN FRONT OF HIM ON PURPOSE.

(Okay, I lied: Charlie _is_ in the rest of the book.)

So basically, Charlie now knows about werewolves--Jacob isn't allowed to _tell_ him, but he got around that by _showing_ him, and since they'll be in even deeper shit if Charlie finds out about the vampiring and the Volturi finds out that _he_ found out, Jacob says, paraphrased, "Yeah, something freaky's up with Bella, too, but I can't tell you what. Just trust me on this."

**"After a few minutes, he asked, real quietly, if you turned into an animal, too. And I said, 'She wishes she was that cool!' " Jacob chuckled.**

AND HE TOLD CHARLIE ABOUT THE BABY. WHAT? _WHAT?_

"She's your orphaned ward—like Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson." Jacob snorted. "I didn't think you'd mind me lying."

AHAHAHAHA. Oh by the way, CHARLIE IS ON HIS WAY OVER. Fortunately, Alice got Bella contacts to hide her blood-red eyes! At least someone was thinking ahead here. Of course, Bella will still have to change them out frequently because the venom in her eyes will _dissolve them_, holy crap. And then Edward sits Renesmee down v. v. srsly and asks her to behave while Grandpa's here and not to bite him or scare him shitless with the thought-showing.

And then Edward kisses Bella supportively and she gets horny again. Good _God._ And here's Charlie!

**I read the emotions as they scrolled across Charlie's face. Shock. Disbelief. Pain. Loss. Fear. Anger. Suspicion. More pain.**

Yeah, so pretty much they're not fooling anybody; Charlie immediately notices that Bella looks really, really different. Also, he immediately figures out that Renesmee is Bella's kid and not "Edward's niece," and also, holy crap, HIS WEIRDLY HOT DAUGHTER GAVE BIRTH TO A TODDLER. Hey! Hey! You know what's worse? This:

Charlie's scent was a fistful of flames, punching straight down my throat. But it was so much more than pain. It was a hot stabbing of desire, too. Charlie smelled more delicious than anything I'd ever imagined. As appealing as the anonymous hikers had been on the hunt, Charlie was doubly tempting. And he was just a few feet away, leaking mouthwatering heat and moisture into the dry air.

OH _GROSS._

And then Charlie sits down with Emmett and starts watching football. The more things change, I guess.

**Chapter 26: "Shiny"**

"Hey, were you thinking of telling your mother about your weird sudden hotness and your toothy magical toddler?" "Nope." "Good."

So the whole time Charlie was there, Emmett kept making allusions to Bella and Edward's sex life, so now, it's time for a bet mentioned all the way back in _Eclipse_: can Bella beat Emmett at arm-wrestling now that she'll be super newborn-vampire strong for the next full year? At stake: the cessation or marked increase of sex jokes. So they set up on a boulder and Bella pwns him, like, immediately. And then she starts smashing boulders and having the best time ever while her vampire in-laws crack up. Omg, Bella being a vampire is everything I have ever hoped for and dreamed of. And Renesmee (or "Nessie," if you're willing to risk Bella's wrath) can also crush rocks a little but not really yet.

Hey! Nobody's sparkled yet in this book! I say it's high time to remedy _that:_

**Renesmee stroked the smooth diamond-bright facets, then laid her arm next to mine. Her skin had just a faint luminosity, subtle and mysterious. Nothing that would keep her inside on a sunny day like my glowing sparkle. She touched my face, thinking of the difference and feeling disgruntled.**

**"You're the prettiest," I assured her.**

Wait for it… wait for it!

**Edward was both dazzling and dazzled.**

Dazzled by _Bella_, of course:

**So this was really different. I was amazing now—to them and to myself. It was like I had been born to be a vampire. The idea made me want to laugh, but it also made me want to sing. I had found my true place in the world, the place I fit, the place I shined.**

The place where BELLA SWAN IS BETTER THAN YOU.

Hey, wouldn't that be a great place to end the book?

**Chapter 27: "Travel Plans"**

No? Really? Twelve more chapters? Seriously?

(You know how long this book is? "Renesmee" is starting to look like a really cute name.)

HEY LET'S HAVE A MONTAGE CHAPTER FOR THE NEXT THREE MONTHS, I AM TOTALLY OKAY WITH MOVING ON A LITTLE FASTER.

So: Leah's cranky but the beta wolf in Jacob's mini-pack. Seth and Leah's widowed mom, Sue Clearwater, has gotten closer to Charlie and they're probably doing it. Also, Bella is still obsessed with sex:

**And I was euphoric the vast majority of the time. The days were not long enough for me to get my fill of adoring my daughter; the nights did not have enough hours to satisfy my need for Edward.**

Oy.

On the less happy-shiny end of things, Renesmee speaks her first word at one week old (uh, technically she says "Momma, where is Grandpa?"). And then she watches Alice do her little dancy-dancy walk and copies it almost perfectly… at the age of three weeks.

At three months, Renesmee could have been a big one-year-old, or a small two-year-old. She wasn't shaped exactly like a toddler; she was leaner and more graceful, her proportions were more even, like an adult's. Her bronze ringlets hung to her waist; I couldn't bear to cut them, even if Alice would have allowed it. Renesmee could speak with flawless grammar and articulation, but she rarely bothered, preferring to simply show people what she wanted. She could not only walk but run and dance. She could even read.

Tennyson, specifically. Man, I thought Claudia was creepy.

You know what really creeps me out about all this, in a weird way? That Bella's only nineteen. Bella's still a teenager, and she's got, like, a full-grown toddler. Who can jump fifteen feet in the air to catch a snowflake—and might age-accelerate to "an old woman" in fifteen years. So... that kind of sucks.

So then the Cullens are planning a trip to Brazil to research Ticuna legends about hybrid vampire-human children when a wedding present from Aro arrives. Aro! Yay Aro! I love that dotty old vampire. Imagine Dumbledore on a really space-cadet day as a vampire: that's how I think of him. Anyway, he sends her an ancient medieval gold necklace with a giant diamond, and Bella's thinking about how she needs to go back to Volterra (you know, the capital vampire city in Italy) alone so that the Volturi won't find out that the Cullens have a TABOO VERBOTEN BABYPIRE NOOOOO. But then one day she and Jacob and Renesmee are hunting (Nessie seems to dig elk if she can't get donated human blood from Carlisle's hospital), and hey, there's Irina! She decided to come visit after all! You know, Irina! Whose vampire not-mother was burnt alive over the issue of OH _SHIT_. Apparently Irina is also still pissed about what happened to Laurent(look, it's a long story and I don't think I actually included it, so: Laurent was one of James' buddies in the first book, and James decided to kill Bella for the lulz except that the Cullens tore James to bits first, so then James' life-mate Victoria got mad and stalked Bella for two books, but then Edward tore her head off while bonding with Seth, and... you know, I don't even remember what Laurent had to do with it. He was traveling with them, cut out to hide in Alaska with the Denalis while the James shit was going down, got attached to Irina, then came back and tried to kill Bella for... some reason, but the werewolves intervened and snarfled him), so here she shows up at the Cullens' and there's a werewolf and a child vampire playing right there. _Fuck._ Aaaaaand now the Volturi are coming for all of them.

**Chapter 28: "The Future"**

And now the plot has deigned to show up. Again: the Volturi are totally coming for them. By Alice's clairvoyant estimate, they have about a month before the Volturi can mobilize.

What would Irina tell the Volturi that would result in Alice's appalling vision?

DUH BELLA YOU HAVE A VAMPIRE KID.

Hey, wouldn't it be nice if Alice could look into the future and figure out what to do? Hey... Alice? Alice...?

**Chapter 29: "Defection"**

ALICE LEAVES THEM? She and Jasper _LEAVE THEM?_

But wait! Alice has left a note! The substance of which is, "Bye! Sucks to be you." ALICE, I AM REVOKING YOUR AWESOME CARD. I don't care that you left Bella a sekrit message in a copy of _The Merchant of Venice _! YOU ARE HEREBY DEMOTED FROM AWESOME. And don't even talk to me about "Jazz."

The note, by the way, is an address followed by the words "Destroy this," which Bella takes to mean that Alice doesn't want Edward to know. Know what? I don't know. Something. Bella Googles the address, and then she and Edward have sex.

**Chapter 30: "Irresistible"**

Wait, the sex is in this chapter. Anyway, Bella and Edward have sex. Vaguely. Again.

Okay, so, let me break it on down for you. The two Volturi vampires they're really worried about are Jane, who can taser you with her mind, and Alec, who can mentally incapacitate everyone--i.e., make them really not care that they're getting their asses chomped. Bella has already shown herself to be immune to Jane even before she was a vampire (God, can I just tell you how happy it makes me to write things like "before she was a vampire"? I am just ridiculously full of glee that we don't ever have to listen to Bella whine about wanting to be one _anymore, ever_), and presumably she'll be immune to all the other Volturi thugs as well. Except that... none of her friends or family will be immune, so... that's kind of a problem. And Demetri's the Volturi's super-special-better-than-James tracker, so even if Bella runs with Renesmee, he'll find her.

What the Cullens are hoping to do, rather than fight, is to gather as many friends as they can to "witness" for them--basically, you spend an afternoon with Renesmee, she'll be like three inches taller by the time you leave. Thus, clearly, she's not a created, eternally-childlike vampire, which, as you recall, is TABOO AND VERY BAD. This is, of course, assuming the Volturi aren't just looking for an excuse to wipe the Cullens out for fun (they, uh, kind of are), but, you know: you do what you can. Except for Alice, who RAN AWAY.

Okay, let's be fair: Alice did say in her note, the one that everyone read, to go look up a bunch of their friends and make sure to show them Renesmee. And here's the first batch, the friends who came to the wedding:

**Eleazar:** A gentle former Volturi. Power: He can sense what everyone's gifts are.

**Tanya:** Irina's not-sister from the Denali clan who had (has?) a thing for Edward. Power: Not sure I saw it mentioned.

**Kate:** Irina's other not-sister from the Denali clan (_Note from the future: who ends up being awesome. Power: electroshock skin.)_

**Carmen:** She's... she's with Eleazar. And she throws a lot of random Spanish into her dialogue ("May I hold you, _bebé linda _?"). I don't know.

And then Renesmee shows them all her memories of growing up in, like, two weeks and they're all instantly charmed and on the Cullens' side. Obviously, Nessie gets her Mary Sue from her mother. Of course, they're also being bombarded by cuteness assaults like this:

**"I'm not dangerous at all," Renesmee interjected. I listened to her high, clear voice with new ears, imagining how she sounded to the others. "I never hurt Grandpa or Sue or Billy Jacob's father. I love humans. And wolf-people like my Jacob." She dropped Edward's hand to reach back and pat Jacob's arm**.

I... I kind of love Renesmee. I think I'm developing Stockholm Syndrome. _Please send help._

**Chapter 31: "Talented"**

Guess who's more talented than you? BELLA SWAN, DUH:

**"Excuse me," Edward said in a stunned voice. He reached out and caught Eleazar's shoulder as he was about to turn again for the door. "What did you just call my wife?"**

**Eleazar looked at Edward curiously, his manic pacing forgotten for the moment. "A shield, I _think_. She's blocking me now, so I can't be sure."**

**I stared at Eleazar, my brows furrowing in confusion. Shield? What did he mean about my blocking him? I was standing right here beside him, not defensive in any way.**

**Hey, remember how Edward could never read Bella's mind? And** Aro couldn't either? And Jane could never crucio her? Well, now it turns out that Bella has the bestest, strongest power of anyone! _No one_ can get around her shield!

**"Momma, you're special," Renesmee told me without any surprise, like she was commenting on the color of my clothes.**

From the mouths of babes! Half-vampire babes! It _must_ be true. And then Eleazar realizes that that's what the Volturi _does _: kills and burns and devastates, and then accepts "repentant" vampires into their numbers. And of course the "repentant" ones, the ones they just _magically_ let live, are the most talented. And which family is full of talented Mary Sue vampires? OH SHIT. And that's why Aro's taking a full month to march the entire Volturi down (over?) to Forks to administer the "punishment" for having an alleged child vampire in person: to add to his collection. And _that's_ why Alice got the hell out of Dodge. Oh, Dumblevamp, how _could _you?

**Chapter 32: "Company"**

Can I get a witness? Roll call!

**Peter and Charlotte:** Jasper's friends. Nomads? Don't hear much about them.

**The Irish clan: **Carlisle's friends. **Siobhan** can will things, like goals or events, to happen. I mean, maybe not immediately, because that would be too helpful. But, you know. Eventually. Her partner **Liam** is "territorial." This is apparently a power. Their other companion, **little Maggie,** always knows when she's being lied to, which immediately gets any doubt about Renesmee out of the way. Convenient!

**The Egyptian vampires:** **Amun** is a cranky bastard who apparently has the power of being an unhelpful jerk. His mate **Kebi** has the power of... being his mate. Cute young (but not too young) **Benjamin** can actually control physical elements, like Captain Planet or something, I don't know. He also has the power of never taking any shit from Amun, no matter how bad Amun wants to boss him around or weaponize his elemental powers. Benjamin also has a mate named **Tia**, but if she has a power, I don't know about it.

**Garrett:** Emmett's friend. (Okay, Bella says "Emmett and Rosalie's," but I'm sorry, this is totally the kind of guy Emmett would hang with.) A hot adventuresome nomad vampire; sadly, he has no gifts... except the gift of being awesome. You'll be seeing more of him.

Mary and Randall: Not interesting enough to get more than "they were nomads, and they decided to hang around."

Alistair: Another grumpy bastard, this time British, who prefers sulking in the Cullens' attic to socializing. Powers: tracking; wimping out on friends.

The Amazons: Sent by Alice, so at least she's working towards getting her awesome right. I would like to say that Zafrina is totally fierce, because she is, except that I mean in more of the "righteous chick I look up to" way, and I think Stephenie Meyer may mean it more in the "exotic Amazon heathen, let's stare at her" kind of way. I hope not. Zafrina and Senna are "like two limbs of one organism," and I don't know that we get any evidence as to what Senna's gender is, although Senna being "a mirror image" suggests female. Interesting. Anyway, Zafrina can make you see anything she wants you to see--literally, the power of illusion. Renesmee instantly takes a shine to Zafrina (MOAR PRETTY PICTURES, basically). Also, Kachiri is out there somewhere, but s/he's not here yet.

The Romanians: Vladimir and Stefan, who weren't actually invited, but are really, creepily eager to see someone take the Volturi down. Apparently their grudges go back 1500 years? Damn. Jacob calls them "Dracula 1 and Dracula 2." Man, it's good to love Jacob again after the four-hundred-page aneurysm that was Eclipse.

So meanwhile, Bella is having to learn vampire fighting techniques, the way Jasper taught the Cullens and the wolves in Eclipse, but Edward's not very good at teaching her because he can't bear to raise a hand against her, so he ends up making himself useful as a guinea pig while Bella shield-trains with Kate. Basically, Bella's trying to learn to extend her mind-shield around Edward, and they'll know she's succeeded when Kate's electroshock stops hurting. "Is it around you now?" "Owww." "Is it around you now?" "OWWWWW." Hey, why not get Zafrina to use her Skillz of Illusion instead of having Kate shock him? Well, because Edward's pain is a better motivator than Edward's "Hey, this rainforest is really pretty," that's why. Hey, you know what would be an even better motivator? NO NESSIE NO!

**"But Momma, I want to help," she said in a determined voice. Her hand rested against my neck, reinforcing her desire with images of the two of us together, a team.**

As it turns out, this is exactly what Bella needs to visualize what her mind-shield actually looks like and how it actually works, and before you know it, she's shielding Renesmee and Edward and hey, let's shield the whole damn house! Bravo, Bella.

(Note from the future: A lot of angry Twilighters have complained that Bella has a magical "shield of love." See, the thing is, the phrase "shield of love" is never used, and I don't think it even has anything to do with love at all--the mental block is something she's been doing unconsciously ever since the very first time Edward laid eyes on her in Twilight and couldn't hear her thoughts. Obviously, she's going to use it to protect people she loves. But she also uses it to protect people she met all of three weeks ago. Hell, she uses it to protect Dracula 1 and Dracula 2. You can complain that she's a Mary Sue because her power is the bestest and strongest of all, but it really does call back to the first book, and it doesn't have anything to do with love. In fact, I might argue that it's the most logical thing in all of Breaking Dawn.)

Meanwhile, Kate and Garrett start steaming up the practice session:

**Garrett continued toward Kate despite Edward's warning, his lips pursed in speculation. "They say you can put a vampire flat on his back."**

**"Yes," she agreed. Then, with a sly smile, she wiggled her fingers playfully at him. "Curious?" ... "You look strong, though. Perhaps you could withstand my gift." She stretched her hand out to him, palm up—a clear invitation. Her lips twitched, and I was pretty sure her grave expression was an attempt to hustle him.**

Again, I'm just... putting that out there.

Chapter 33: "Forgery"

Hey, what was that sekrit note from Alice all about? Well, through a complicated series of redirections, she's trying to get Bella to go to a lawyer's office; the lawyer's so shady that he goes by three different names, but we'll stick with J. Jenks. So Bella drops Jacob and Nessie off at Charlie's and goes downtown to find this guy, who, it turns out, has done business with the Cullens before. Unfortunately, he usually does it through Jasper, and we don't know what Jasper did to him, exactly, but apparently he's willing to say "HOW HIGH??" when a Cullen says "Jump." But before J. Jenks' sleazy, uh, receptionist (well, someone has to hang around in front of his secret ghetto office all day) bothers to tell J. his new client's name, he describes Bella thusly over the phone:

"She looks like . . ." His eyes ran from my face to my shoes appreciatively. "Well, she looks like a freaking supermodel, that's what she looks like." I smiled and he winked at me, then went on. "Rocking body, pale as a sheet, dark brown hair almost to her waist, needs a good night's sleep—any of this sounding familiar?"

Ah, remember the pre-vampire, pre-wish fulfillment days when Bella was "too pale," "slim," and had all the boys fantasizing about her? ... Wait.

Anyway, the _actual_ point of this trip is that J. Jenks supplies forged papers--exactly what Renesmee will need if she (and Jacob, Bella decides) need to flee the country. And that's why Edward (or anyone else) couldn't be allowed to know, because Aro would read it in his mind; Aro can't read Bella's, so only she can know.

(Side note: the papers are made out for Jacob Wolfe and Vanessa Wolfe. Heh.)

**Chapter 34: "Declared"**

And while she was out, she also bought Renesmee an antique locket with a French inscription that translates to _More than my own life._ Before you get something in your eye (no, really, it's nothing), check out what else Nessie got for Christmas:

**Renesmee wore the locket I'd given her at dawn, and in her jacket pocket was the MP3 player Edward had given her—a tiny thing that held five thousand songs, already filled with Edward's favorites. On her wrist was an intricately braided Quileute version of a promise ring.**

AHHHHHHHH.

Anyway, by the time they get back from Christmas lunch at Charlie's, Alistair's pussed out and made a run for it, and Carlisle and Benjamin are arguing with Amun, who threatens to join the Volturi, and everyone else is like WE STAND UNITED! I... am not united. I am tired.

**Chapter 35: "Deadline**"

Bella goes to a super secret private room in a fancy restaurant to pick up the papers from J. Jenks, and it seems that Edward's penchant for beige is catching:

The waiter took the calf-length ivory trench coat I'd worn to disguise the fact that I was wearing Alice's idea of appropriate attire, and gasped quietly at my oyster satin cocktail dress.

So Jenks has the papers. But he seems really nervous about something, and you know what it is? He's afraid that Bella's kidnapping Nessie from "Mr. Edward" and running away with her (and another man, presumably), and he knows that, if she does, "Mr. Jasper" will break him. Heh.

So: the day has come. The Cullens and company go out to the snow-covered clearing that Alice foresaw, and Bella has packed up a little black leather backpack/purse for Renesmee with the papers, money, letters for Nessie and Jacob and her parents, and a scrap of paper with RIO DE JANEIRO written on it, on the off chance that Alice would foresee Bella writing the words down and know to look for Jacob and Nessie there. Also on the off chance that Jacob will find the scrap of paper in the backpack and go there, or even have any clue what it means. Always be prepared!

Chapter 36: "Bloodlust"

So the Cullens and the vampire houseguests and the werewolves are all lined up and please, please do something, anything to wrap this up, I'm losing my will to live over here. Here come the Volturi! And the Volturi brought their entire guard (and... their wives?) and an angry mob of their own witnesses! And in response, the Quileutes now have sixteen wolves instead of ten, because so many vampires have been in town the last month that another crowd of teenagers fursploded. Man, that must have been awkward. And they must be eating the rez out of house and home.

**More children dying. I wondered why Sam had allowed this, and then I realized he had no other choice. If any of the wolves stood with us, the Volturi would be sure to search out the rest. They had gambled their entire species on this stand.**

**And we were going to lose.**

OH NOW YOU'VE JUST MADE BELLA SWAN CULLEN MAD:

**Abruptly, I was furious. Beyond furious, I was murderously enraged. My hopeless despair vanished entirely. A faint reddish glow highlighted the dark figures in front of me, and all I wanted in that moment was the chance to sink my teeth into them, to rip their limbs from their bodies and pile them for burning. I was so maddened I could have danced around the pyre where they roasted alive; I would have laughed while their ashes smoldered. My lips curved back automatically, and a low, fierce snarl tore up my throat from the pit of my stomach. I realized the corners of my mouth were turned up in a smile.**

(Note from the future: You see? I would actually characterize her power as more of a BELLA SMASH! than a "shield of love." And I do like Bella when she's angry.)

So anyway, there's three head vampires: deceptively dotty old Dumblevamp Aro, mean aggressive Caius, and Marcus, who doesn't really give a shit but he gets dragged along on these things anyway. Aro and Caius basically have a good cop/bad cop routine, and Marcus has an "Are we done yet?" routine. So Aro reads Edward's thoughts, and then they pry Renesmee away from Bella long enough to have her show Aro her thoughts, and he's like, "Huh. She's really not a child vampire. Who knew?" Of course, when he assures Renesmee that he doesn't want to hurt her friends or family, little Maggie in the back is all like "LIARRRRRRRRR," but there's not much they or the Volturi can do about it at the moment. I KNOW, LET'S GO DISCUSS IT SOME MORE.

Chapter 37: "Contrivances"

Interesting factoid: We learn that the Quileutes are not actually werewolves, but rather shapeshifters:

"The choice of a wolf form was purely chance. It could have been a bear or a hawk or a panther when the first change was made. These creatures truly have nothing to do with the Children of the Moon. They have merely inherited this skill from their fathers. It's genetic—they do not continue their species by infecting others the way true werewolves do."

Huh. Maybe I can shapeshift into someone who's gotten to the end of this book already. Please? Please.

Hey, Irina! It's time for Caius to do his bad cop routine! Irina fully admits that she jumped to conclusions and made a mistake, and that Renesmee is not a child vampire, so Caius has his guards TEAR IRINA TO PIECES AND BURN HER BODY ON THE SPOT, WHAT THE HELL. Apparently this is supposed to provoke her not-sisters Kate and Tanya into attacking so that the Volturi will then have a pretext to kill everyone, but Garrett and Zafrina and the Cullens restrain them, and the Volturi witnesses are starting to shift from foot to foot all like, "Wait... what just happened? That... that was kind of not cool," and Aro starts filibustering about how, okay, Renesmee is biologically half-human but they don't know what she'll grow up to be like and ONLY THE KNOWN IS ACCEPTABLE, SHE MUST BE DESTROYED FOR THE GREATER GOOD (THE GREATER GOOOOOOD), and then Garrett stands up and CALLS ARO OUT ON HIS SHIT, oh my Lord, thank you, Garrett, for ensuring that maybe we'll all get to go home sometime this century. So Aro's like, fine! Whoever doesn't like the Volturi, GTFO! And some of the Volturi witnesses start slinking away. HA! So... uh... what do we do now, Dumblevamp? "Let us counsel." NO! NO COUNSELING! NO MORE COUNSELING! I'VE BEEN HERE WRITING FOR TEN HOURS, MY FINGERS ARE CEASING TO FING!

Okay, look, I'm skipping ahead. Blah blah tell Jacob to run off with Nessie, blah blah Edward finds out Bella's secret plan, blah blah--wait, hold up, you gotta see this:

**Edward leaned his head against the same shoulder where he'd placed Renesmee. "Goodbye, Jacob, my brother... my son."**

So that... well, that happened. Uh. So... everyone says goodbye and I love you, and Garrett tells Kate (actual quote) "I'll follow you anywhere, woman" and I spontaneously start shipping them.

Chapter 38: "Power"

OH MY GOD PLEASE FIGHT ALREADY. Wait! It's already started!

**"Chelsea is trying to break our bindings," Edward whispered. "But she can't find them. She can't feel us here. . . ." His eyes cut to me. "Are you doing that?"**

**I smiled grimly at him. "I am _all_ over this."**

So they haven't even delivered a verdict and already Jane's trying to crucio them, but Bella has her shields up and starts taunting Jane and Alec sends over an invisible mist of not-caring and Bella holds it off and Aro starts filibustering again and then all of a sudden ALICE SHOWS UP BECAUSE SHE IS AWESOME with Jasper and Kachiri the Amazon and some Brazilian vampire chick and HER NEPHEW NAHUEL THE VAMPIRE-HUMAN HYBRID WHO CAN TOTALLY VOUCH FOR NESSIE GROWING UP NORMAL:

We had forever. And Nessie was going to be fine and healthy and strong. Like the half-human Nahuel, in a hundred and fifty years she would still be young. And we would all be together. Happiness expanded like an explosion inside me—so extreme, so violent that I wasn't sure I'd survive it.

**"Forever," Edward echoed in my ear.**

POW! WHAT NOW, MOTHERFUCKER!

So Aro and the Volturi put on big smiles and shuffle off like it was their idea and they just suddenly have better things to do. So of course, Bella responds the only way she knows how these days, which is to be horny:

I couldn't speak anymore. I lifted my head and kissed Edward with a passion that might possibly set the forest on fire. I wouldn't have noticed.

Hey, I like it better than the whining of yore.

Chapter 39: "The Happily Ever After"

Man, I don't know whether the best part is that I got everything I wanted (FOUR FOR FOUR! victory lap), or that THE BOOK IS FINALLY OVER. And of course, it turned out that Bella saved everyone all by herself and none of the other X-Men even had to deploy their powers, and everyone goes back to the Cullens' to celebrate (except, uh, Kate and Tanya, whose buzz has kind of been harshed by the sudden immolation of their not-sister, but Garrett goes with them because he and Kate are totally forever now), and Nahuel no longer feels like he caused his mother's death, and Alice is like, "So wait, what was in Rio?"

Oh! OH! And then Bella shows Edward how Zafrina showed her to move her mind-shield outside herself, so now Edward can finally hear her thoughts (which, of course, are about sex):

**I pressed my hands to his face again, hefted the shield right out of my mind, and then started in where I'd left off—with the crystal-clear memory of the first night of my new life... lingering on the details.**

**I laughed breathlessly when his urgent kiss interrupted my efforts again.**

**"Damn it," he growled, kissing hungrily down the edge of my jaw.**

**"We have plenty of time to work on it," I reminded him.**

**"Forever and forever and forever," he murmured.**

**"That sounds exactly right to me."**

**And then we continued blissfully into this small but perfect piece of our forever.**

And they sexed happily ever after in their magic cottage while their half-vampire toddler slept in the next room, and it was the best series starting with a teenage girl in love with a mysterious boy in her class that ended up with a teenage girl defending her growth-accelerated mutant hybrid baby from an ancient clan of evil vampires with her magical psychic shield that I ever read, THE END.

* * *

**So, there is the end of the Abridged Version of Breaking Dawn. Lovely, no? So... REVIEW!! I'm not too bad on that kinda thing.. I really don't care if you do or not. It's my friend piece of work... So, be nice.**

**3Shanmanin**


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